So I’ve recently joined the Online Party of Canada (OPC). I’d never seriously considered joining a political party in the past (although I had been thinking of starting a new political party) because as many Canadians, I’ve grown to be disenchanted with Politicians and Politics in general. That being said, I actually believe this one to be different. And that’s what led me to start blogging again.
What’s different about the Online Party of Canada?
I’ll try to lay it out in simple terms. The Online Party of Canada is not your typical party; it has no agenda, no platform, it is neither left nor right winged… it simply proposes a new way of doing things the old way.
To understand the meaning of this last statement, I would invite you to read this simple explanation of the history of modern democracy (written for children):
"Democracy means the rule of the people (in Greek). That is where each individual person has a vote about what to do. Whatever the most people vote for wins. There is no king or tyrant, and anybody can propose a new law.
One problem that immediately comes up in a democracy is who is going to be able to vote. Should people vote who are just visiting from some other city-state? How about little kids, should they vote? Or should there be some limits?
The earliest democracy in the world began in Athens, in 510 BC. When democracy proved to be successful in Athens, many other city-states chose it for their government too. But most of them allowed even fewer people to vote than Athens did: most of the other city-states only allowed free adult male citizens to vote IF they owned land or owned their own houses (that is, the richer people).
Another problem for democracies was that it was very inconvenient for men to always be going to the meeting-place to vote. Most men had work to do, planting their grain, making shoes, fighting wars or whatever. They couldn't be always voting. So most democracies sooner or later ended up choosing a few men who would do most of the voting, and the rest only came when there was a really important vote.”
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/government/democracy.htm
This brief excerpt illustrates how and why we came to adopt a representative democracy in Canada. At the federal level, those “few men chosen to do most of the voting” are our Members of Parliament (MPs). We had to find a temporary solution for the fact that we couldn’t fit every Canadian in the House of Commons. I mean let’s face it, we live in a huge country, geographically speaking, and it wouldn’t have made sense to ask everyone to come down to Ottawa to cast a vote everyday. Therefore, instead of voting on issues, we’ve learned to vote for people (Elections) to vote on issues (Bills, laws, etc.) on our behalf. However, let’s not forget that this model (representative democracy) was originally a substitute for the ideal (direct democracy) due to geographical and time constraints.Now that the Internet has eliminated those barriers to a true democracy, why are we still stuck with a “modern” representative democracy?
We have become so accustomed to the substitute that we have come to accept it as the ideal. Something was lost along the way. We lost the ability to govern ourselves. We gave this power up and we started specializing in other fields: medicine, law, engineering, business, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with specialization of labour; in fact, it made society more efficient as a whole. But we collectively forgot that “politician” was never meant to be a separate profession. It was originally a civic duty shared by everyone. Every eligible member of a society would have the right to propose laws and vote on them: doctors, mechanics, lawyers, carpenters, etc. would ALL be politicians as well. If you had the right to vote, you were a politician.
Yes, but nowadays people are too ignorant and misinformed to represent themselves!
Since the news of the Online Party of Canada came out, we’ve heard the same comment(s) made by so-called political “experts” and members of the public:
“I would want decisions made [at the government level] by people that know something about politics.”
- Neil Thomlinson, chair of the department of politics at Ryerson University.
“I think the major problem with this is that so many people in the general public are just not informed enough on every issue.”
- JT, comment posted on the Blog of Walker, http://walkersunknownthoughts.blogspot.com/
This is a typical reaction: most people think most people are ignorant, misinformed and incapable of critical thinking (TRIVIA: did you know that most people think they are smarter than most people). Funny isn't it?
I, for one, don't believe it is fair to judge a general public's future hypothetical performance based on present context. True, some people are presently ignorant and misinformed. But the general public currently has no "real" incentive to be informed – intrinsic intellectual curiosity aside. So of course we are “not informed enough on every issue”! Why would we be? I mean, why waste time gathering information and analyzing an issue when you will never actually get to use that information anywhere else than in a blog or a cocktail party?
And saying that people are no longer capable of representing themselves politically is like saying that humans are no longer capable of growing gardens. True, most of us live in cities nowadays and most of us have lost the ability to grow our own food. But we only have to go back a few centuries, before the Industrial Revolution, when most people in society knew how to tend a garden. It’s not that we can’t do it anymore; it’s simply that we have stopped doing it. We would all have the intellectual capacity to learn to grow a garden again, if we really needed to, in order to survive.
With the right set of incentives (e.g. having the opportunity to vote on issues that affect us directly), I predict that we will see an electorate suddenly becoming much better informed on important issues and more engaged politically. And we don’t necessarily need to vote on every single issue; we can focus on topics in which we have a better understanding and let other people specialize on different issues. That way, we would act as Ministers of our own portfolio.
Sure, we'll probably screw up and make a few bad decisions at first but which government hasn’t? (e.g. taxes? who needs taxes?). But sooner or later we'll realize that we actually needed those damn taxes to pave our roads (figuratively speaking.. I hope).
Slowly but surely, we'll start building a better Canada than any Party or Politician could ever have imagined under the current system. But first, we must start believing in ourselves and stop putting down our fellow citizens. After all, we’re all part of the general public.
Visit the Online Party of Canada website today!
I know a lot of you are sceptical of this party's success, I wouldn’t blame you. In fact, many of the greats once were:
"In the strict sense of the term, a true democracy has never existed, and will never exist.”
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762.
Please take a few minutes to visit the OPC website (a.k.a. virtual House of Commons), read up on the issues and see how it all works:
http://www.onlineparty.ca/
If you wish to join the movement and help the OPC register as an official party, simply download the Membership Form found on this site:
http://www.onlineparty.ca/about.php?pt=4
Print, fill and mail it in to:
Online Party of Canada
388 King St. W – P.O. Box 30002
Toronto ON, M5V 1K0
Or if you want, simply send a request to mailto:membership@onlineparty.caand they will mail you a form and a stamped return envelope!
C'mon people, together we can do better than 308 "elected" officials representing our interests!
No comments:
Post a Comment